Book reviews

Making Sense in Law: Linguistic, Psychological and Semiotic Perspectives, BERNARD S. JACKSON Liverpool: Deborah Charles Publications 1995

Culture And Sexual Risk: Anthropological Perspectives On Aids, HAN T. BRUMMELHUIS &; GILBERT HERDT (Eds) Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1995

Virtual Geography, MCKENZIE WARK, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994     

The calcaneus: sex assessment of prehistoric New Zealand Polynesian skeletal remains

The increasing pace of urbanisation has meant that prehistoric Polynesian skeletal remains are frequently being recovered in New Zealand. Since such material must often be reinterred quickly, it is important that the sex of individuals be determined from the remains in a relatively short time. For this purpose, discriminant function analysis was utilised for sex determination of prehistoric adult New Zealand Polynesian calcanei (26 male and 22 female). Five measurements were taken and subjected to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) discriminant function analysis. For the discriminant functions derived, accuracy of sex determination ranged from 88.4 to 93.5%. Reduction in error over random assignment by sex ranged from 77 to 87%.     

Suspect burial excavation procedure: A cautionary tale

Geographic location, time of reporting and need for rapid evaluation contributed to a lack of intelligence concerning a suspect burial site in scrub woodland (～15 km from the last known location of a missing person) in Northern Ireland. Police received reports of a subsiding ‘grave’, which was evaluated positively using GPR and victim recovery dogs (VRD). After 24 h work, archaeological excavation showed a vertical-sided, stepped excavation on undisturbed clay with no inhumation. Subsequent research showed the feature to be an engineering trial pit. The GPR response was a water table and rocks, VRD were possibly reacting to disturbed ground. The work serves as a demonstration of good archaeological practice in suspect burial excavation, following a lack of landscape evaluation and poor overall intelligence.     

Procedural Justice and Affect Intensity: Understanding Reactions to Regulatory Authorities

Why is it that some people respond in a more negative way to procedural injustice than do others, and why is it that some people go on to defy authority while others in the same situation do not? Personality theorists suggest that the psychological effect of a situation depends on how a person interprets the situation and that such differences in interpretation can vary as a function of individual difference factors. For example, affect intensity—one’s predisposition to react more or less emotionally to an event—is one such individual difference factor that has been shown to influence people’s reactions to events. Cross-sectional survey data collected from (a) 652 tax offenders who have been through a serious law enforcement experience (Study 1), and (b) 672 citizens with recent personal contact with a police officer (Study 2), showed that individual differences in ‘affect intensity’ moderate the effect of procedural justice on both affective reactions and compliance behavior. Specifically, perceptions of procedural justice had a greater effect in reducing anger and reports of non-compliance among those lower in affect intensity than those higher in affect intensity. Both methodological and theoretical explanations are offered to explain the results, including the suggestion that emotions of shame may play a role in the observed interaction.     

Motor accidents and blood samples in New South Wales

In the 12 months to June 2007, more than 26,000 people were injured in motor accidents on New South Wales roads. More than 400 people were killed. Alcohol was an important factor in a significant number of these accidents. The Road Transport (Safety and Traffic Management) Act 1999 (NSW) contains provisions for the mandatory taking of blood samples from drivers who have caused death while driving and who are suspected of having driven under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This article considers the law regarding the requirement of hospital staff to collect blood samples from drivers involved in motor vehicle accidents in New South Wales.     

Anger disturbances among perpetrators of intimate partner violence: clinical characteristics and outcomes of court-mandated treatment

In the present study, the authors clustered a pretreatment sample of 190 perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPV) mandated to attend group counseling based on State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory scores and examined whether these profiles were associated with differential outcomes 1 year postadjudication. Cluster analysis revealed 3 groups: (a) high anger-expressive (HA-E, n = 56), (b) moderate anger-inexpressive (MA-IE; n = 13), and (c) low anger (LA; n = 118). HA-E men perpetrated more IPV, reported experiencing and witnessing more abuse during childhood, scored higher on psychopathology measures, and reported more substance problems. HA-E and MA-IE males had higher program attrition and rearrest rates; MA-IE males were more likely to be arrested for assault-related offenses. Thus, although the majority of partner-abusive men do not present with anger-related disturbances, the presence of anger problems may be a marker for an array of traits that may complicate the treatment process.     

Evaluation and applicability of Alere iCup DX 14 for rapid postmortem urine drug screening at autopsy

Performing point‐of‐care urine drug screen testing at autopsy by a forensic pathologist may provide an early indication of the presence of analytes of interest during autopsy. An evaluation for the screening of 14 classes of common drugs of abuse in postmortem urine by the point‐of‐care screening device, Alere iCup DX 14, is presented. One hundred ninety postmortem urine samples were screened with the iCup occurring at autopsy by the forensic pathologist. Positive and negative results obtained from the screening kit were evaluated against confirmatory test results obtained using routine forensic toxicology analyses that employed LC‐MS/MS and GC‐MS to detect a combination of over 85 common drugs of abuse and medications. Sensitivity for each respective iCup drug class ranged from 66% (buprenorphine) to 100% (methadone, tricyclic antidepressants). Specificity for each respective iCup drug class ranged from 89% (benzodiazepines) to 100% (amphetamines, barbiturates, buprenorphine, 3,4‐methylenedioxymethamphetamine, methadone). Positive predictive values ranged from 44% (benzodiazepines) to 100% (amphetamines, barbiturates, buprenorphine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, methadone), while negative predictive values ranged from 96% (methamphetamine) to 100% (barbiturates, methadone, tricyclic antidepressants). A high false‐positive rate was yielded by the benzodiazepine class. The lack of fentanyl screening in the point‐of‐care device is a significant limitation considering its prolific prevalence in forensic casework. The results obtained in the study should be acknowledged when considering the use of the Alere iCup DX 14 in the context of postmortem casework to help indicate potential drug use contemporaneously with autopsy and when requiring such preliminary results prior to the release of a final forensic toxicology report.